With A Little Help From My Friends
by Tifaching
Summary: Sam and Dean have helped a lot of people in their time.  When they need help, some old friends come through for them.  Warning: Deathfic


Written for this most excellent prompt:

_History is littered with stories of brothers. This is one of them. Two brothers set out to save the world. The cost is high and the older brother is lost. It's said that the younger brother walks the country calling to him. From Maine to Kansas to Oregon he walks. In torment, looking, always looking. There are those that hunt things like him and they try, they do, but there are no bones to burn, so spells that will cast him out, not rituals that will ease his suffering. The only way to put his tormented spirit to rest lies in summoning his brother to take him home._

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><p>With A Little Help From My Friends<p>

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><p>The story is an old one, going back sixty years or more now, but I know it because I was there for part of it. Not a big part, mind you, or one that matters to anyone but me and mine, but I knew them before the end and that's important. There's other parts to the story and I heard some of them because I came to know others they'd helped. <em>Helped.<em> Hell, that's a pretty weak word for what they did. _Saved_ would be better, and it wasn't just us. Before it all went south for them they saved the whole damn world.

When I knew them they were just two brothers working in the family business- the business of saving _people, _hunting _things._ They were pretty damned good at it too, if what I saw was any indication, and I learned later that it was. You can't save everyone, but Sam and Dean had a pretty good win-loss ratio. I never saw them alive again, but if you keep your ear to the ground you hear things and the things I heard said the days of them getting choked and thrown into walls and almost having the life sucked out of them turned out to be the good times.

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><p>Seri saw Sam first, outside her house in Lawrence about five years after the bad times ended. At that point it had been almost ten years since she'd seen him, but she hadn't forgotten the man who carried her away from the burning figure in her bedroom. He'd asked her if she'd seen his brother- he couldn't find Dean, he said, and she could tell he was desperate. She knew something wasn't right with him. He was older, but not ten years worth. He was bigger, harder, more solid, and yet less substantial at the same time. His clothes were ripped, hanging off him in shreds, blackened in places like they'd been burned but he didn't seem to notice. She hadn't seen Dean and she told him so and after he left, fading into the ether halfway down her front walk, Seri did what she always did when faced with something she didn't understand. She went to Missouri.<p>

A few days after Missouri explained certain things to Seri, I got a phone call that started me down a path the Winchester brothers had been traveling before I was born. Meeting Sam and Dean had saved my life and changed my world view, as much as a kid can have a world view, and a few hours after talking to Seri I was headed for Lawrence.

Missouri wouldn't explain things again until we were all there. Wasn't going to go over it individually for everyone, we'd just have to be patient. Patient wasn't something I was very good at, but as more and more people arrived conversations began and time flew by. Everyone had a story to tell about Sam and Dean and they were all fascinating and terrifying in how many different things there were out there to be saved from. Urban legends, demons, wendigos, restless spirits, Native American curses, hell hounds, pagan gods, demonic viruses and sometime even humans- Sam and Dean had saved all these people from all these different things. There were more, Missouri said, but sometimes people didn't even know they'd been saved, or couldn't admit to believing in what they'd been saved from. Finally the last person arrived-a pretty African American journalist from Mississippi- and Missouri said we could finally get started.

She didn't know the whole story, she told us, no one did but Sam and Dean themselves and there were parts of what she did know that weren't our business and she'd be keeping to herself. But she'd tell us the story of the Winchesters and what they'd done for the world and what it had gotten them and we could each decide for ourselves what we wanted to do about it. Each and every one of us owed them our lives from when we'd met them and from when we'd survived the dark days when it seemed like the world was about to end. We'd learned from Sam and Dean that things out of stories and legends were real, so when the bad things started happening, we believed and took steps to protect ourselves and our families. Some of us were only teenagers like me and Seri, but we'd known the basics of salt, holy water and iron and it'd been enough to send most things on to easier prey. It was harsh, but that had been a harsh time and we'd lived through it when lots of others hadn't.

Missouri started with the story of Mary Winchester's death at the hands of the yellow eyed demon and infant Sam's dose of demon blood. She took us through John Winchester's introduction to hunting and his indoctrination of his boys into the life. How Dean had taken to it and Sam had left to try for normal and how badly that had worked out for both of them. John had sacrificed his soul for Dean and Dean had turned around and made the same mistake with Sam. The story of how the brothers had inadvertently broken the first and last seals to begin the apocalypse and their desperate attempt to prevent it from coming to pass. The fact that angels had been just as pro end of the world as demons came as a surprise to us all, but we never doubted Missouri for a moment. The end of the story was one of the mysteries Missouri had mentioned earlier. She hadn't seen Sam or Dean since that one trip to Lawrence when they had saved Seri and her family, but she had kept track of them mentally. Their essences were as clear to her as anyone right there in the room with her no matter where they were. Sam had power, even back then and so did Dean, though no one but her and the angels realized it at the time.

Their last few years had been torture for Missouri to feel, but they had been much worse for the Winchesters themselves. Terror and pain and despair and then Dean was just gone and the blackness inside Sam at the loss of his brother gave Missouri migraines that threatened to split her head in two. Then, suddenly, Dean was back and the darkness in Sam lightened temporarily, but the guilt and terror radiating out of Dean made Sam's ordeal seem like a walk in the park. Sam and Dean discovered that heaven had a plan for Dean and hell had a plan for Sam and the two of them were all that stood between humanity and the apocalypse that they had inadvertently set in motion. Their last few years were ones of distrust and betrayal. Of fear and pain and hopelessness. At the end though, and here Missouri smiled , at the end they found their strength in love and family, and heaven and hell combined were no match for Winchesters when they stuck together. She couldn't tell us what happened, exactly. Just that it had happened in Detroit. No one who wasn't there would ever know and no one who was there was alive to tell the tale. But when it was over, Dean was gone again and Sam was lost. Not alive, but not moving on, just on an endless quest to find his brother. Dean was out of Sam's reach and Sam was out of Dean's. There was no peace for Sam without Dean, and for Dean, wherever he was, no real rest without his brother. Missouri sent a serious gaze around the room, meeting each of our eyes before she finished.

_You know what those men did for you individually and I just told you what they did for everyone in the world, _she told us._ There's something you can do for them if you're willing. It won't be easy and it won't be quick, but it can be done. You all know where you met the Winchesters and when. Sam'll be back to those places looking for his brother. Not every year in the same place, but he has a pattern he follows and you can go there on the anniversary of your continuing to live and see if you can set up what that pattern is. You don't have to go alone. It'll be easier if you all work together, but you all do this however is best for you. Sam and Dean traveled all over this country and there are a lot of places Sam will look that only they know about. But we can check the ones we know about and go from there. There are people who will help us and others who will spit on anything that has to do with the Winchesters. It's not going to get done tomorrow or even next week, but it will get done. _Missouri's eyes locked on me here for a moment and then moved on.

Missouri gave us names and references and lists of books- ancient and modern- and sent us off on our mission. When the time came for us to revisit out worst nightmares, none of us went alone. We traveled to the deep woods of Colorado, and to dying towns on a dried up lake and by a burned out orchard. To an abandoned housing development, and one full of children running around, to a creepy, run down house with cages in the barn and into the sewers of St Louis. We went to an antique shop and to a small town in Mississippi and to formerly haunted houses and crypts and cemeteries. We went everywhere any of us had known the Winchesters to be and sometimes Sam would come, but when we couldn't tell him where Dean was, he'd always leave again. Eventually, and this took a hell of a lot of years, we got his pattern down. We knew where he'd be and when he'd be there. Our research was paying off in other areas too. We'd found a spell that would call Dean from where ever he was. It would only last a short time, but we hoped it would be enough.

Missouri had warned us at the beginning that this was to help Sam and Dean, not to martyr ourselves and that we should never let our mission consume us the way theirs had. We'd listened. We all had lives, had families. Some of us hunted, most of us just led normal existences, as much as tracking a spirit and working on a spell to bring back his dead brother could be called normal. The years passed and the children grew up and most that had started this quest were not there to see the end. But all of us contributed and that's what counts.

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><p>It had taken fifty-odd years to get everything ready, but we'd finally found the last item we needed for the spell and if Sam kept to his schedule he'd be at the orchard in a few hours. I set everything up in the spot he usually showed up in, hoping it'd be at least a little familiar and that he'd remember being with Dean there.I didn't know if the spell would work at all<em>, <em>or if it did, how long it would take and I needed him to hang around long enough to see. Thunder was rumbling in the distance as I finished the final preparations. Perfect. A grief crazed, supernatural something or other Sam Winchester, a spell and a thunderstorm. What else had I expected? I finished up and sat down to wait beside the small fire I had going.

It was cold and with the rain coming I was wishing Sam's schedule would have had him coming by the motel, or to the art gallery, or where the mirror store used to be. Anywhere warm and dry. Well, except maybe the asylum, because when Sam showed up there, it was never a good time. We'd tried to get through to him there twice and hadn't ever gone back. Missouri had told us that the one place Sam would be at the same time every year was Detroit, but even the guarantee that he would be there wasn't enough to make me face _that, _even though I was pushing 75 and being in an abandoned orchard in the middle of the night in the middle of a storm wasn't going to do my arthritis any good. I could have asked one of the kids to do it, but it wouldn't be right. They knew the story, we all made sure of it, but they didn't know the _men._ They knew what happened during the bad times but they didn't _understand_ because they hadn't been there. We told them what the Winchesters had saved us all from, but they hadn't lived through the horror of the almost apocalypse and if there was help to be had for Sam, it should come from one who knew what he and Dean had done and what they had once been- brothers who would do anything for each other.

Fifteen minutes passed before Sam walked into existence about twenty feet away. He stopped when he saw me and stared into the darkness of the orchard, searching for those who might mean him harm. Not that there was any harming him, but a lot of misguided hunters had tried and the orchard was one of the places they'd come to in the past. Emily hadn't said anything about it, but there had been a lot of other people in this town back in the days when Sam and Dean had stopped them from sacrificing travelers to their pagan god, and they hadn't been very quiet about their displeasure with the two young men who'd spoiled their prosperity. Of course the story they told had the Winchesters as the villains, but after the horsemen rose there were people willing to believe anything bad about a Winchester and some of the damned fools actually tried to do something about it. Sam wasn't your usual run of the mill supernatural being. He was something different. Something new. There was no salting, no burning, no spell or weapon that would work on him. And there was no reason to use any of those things. He scared people when he showed up places looking for Dean, but he never hurt them. Not unless they tried to hurt him first.

Sam finished his surveillance of the surrounding darkness and returned his attention to me. He had a pattern he followed in everything and I waited for him to start before I started my own.

"Have you seen my brother? Is Dean here?" Sam hadn't changed at all in the years since I'd first seen him. He was still huge and dark and desperate.

"He's not here Sam, but I think I can get him for you. Will you stay long enough for me to try?" I started to chant without waiting for his answer in case it was _no. _ Sam stared at me and if I wasn't ninety nine percent sure he wouldn't hurt me, that look would have sent me hobbling for my life. I had prayed that this would work so it would bring him peace- now I was praying that it would work so I'd get a chance to see my family again. I finished the chant, careful to stay in my spot as the focus of the spell. A long moment passed and Sam looked down and turned away.

"He's not here. Not here." I'd heard these words from him before, and I didn't think it was possible for them to be spoken in a more desolate, broken voice, but it was. Sam sounded near the end of his strength, and I had thought there was no stopping for him but now I was afraid. Afraid that he was nearing the end and that he had no idea what to do next. He took a few steps back the way he came and was only seconds from disappearing again when a voice from behind nearly gave me a coronary.

"Hey, bitch, where do you think you're going?"

Sam froze and turned around slowly. He stared behind me and the expression on his face became slightly less desolate. But only slightly. A lot of time had passed and a lot of tricks had been played and Sam wasn't ready to believe just yet.

"Dean?" His face hadn't changed but the hopeful longing in that one word had my heart pounding. He hadn't left. Dean was here. This was going to work.

"Yeah, yeah Sammy it's me." A figure walked past me, giving me a nod as it went by. I hadn't seen Dean Winchester in over sixty years, but it was him. He looked exactly the same as he had when I was a kid, but without the careworn expression. He looked calm and peaceful and determined as he walked toward the little brother who'd been endlessly searching for him for almost six decades. He reached Sam and swept him into a tight hug. "Sammy, God." Dean was crying and Sam was sobbing, wrapped in his brother's arms. I looked away to give them some privacy, but I wasn't leaving until Dean went back to wherever it was he came from and took Sam with him. We'd worked too hard to get this done to not see it through to the end.

"You came back to me, Dean. Where've you been? I looked everywhere!"

"Not everywhere, you stubborn son of a bitch. And I didn't come back _to_ you, I came back _for_ you. If I could have done it myself I would have been back a long time ago, but I needed help. But I'm here now and I'm taking you back with me."

"Back where?" Sam's voice was shaking.

"You know where, Sam."

"No!" Sam screamed in panic and pulled away from Dean. Two steps and he'd be gone, and Dean couldn't follow- this was a one-time deal and if Sam got away he'd be lost forever. Luckily Dean was an awesome big brother. He moved so fast I could barely follow him and tackled Sam to the ground before he got more than a step. Sam thrashed and fought, but Dean hung on and whispered into his hear until Sam lay still in his grasp.

"No," Sam moaned in terror. "No, no, no. I can't Dean. I can't go there."

"Yes you can, Sam. You _can._"

"They won't let me! I can't."

A circle of light began to glow around them and Sam buried his face in Dean's neck. Dean started talking faster, knowing that he was running out of time to convince his brother.

"Do you trust me Sam?" Dean smiled as Sam nodded without looking up. "Then look, Sam. Look at the light."

Sam slowly turned to look. He stared into the light and the tight exhaustion dropped from his face. The darkness left his eyes and they became wide and clear and full of wonder. He turned again to look at his brother and his face was still a little scared.

"It's okay? It's really okay for me to go with you?"

"It's always been okay, Sammy. The only one keeping you out is you. You belong there so stop being such an asshole and come with me already. Everyone's waiting."

"Everyone?" Sam sounded about three years old.

"Mom and Dad. Bobby. Pastor Jim. Ellen and Jo. Jess."

"Jess?"

"Yup."

"And you."

"Of course me, Sammy. Hasn't been the same without you."

Sam smiled. "It's okay for me to go with you."

"That's what I've been trying to tell you, bitch."

Sam smiled even wider. "Then let's go jerk."

"Not yet, Sammy. Still got a little business here."

Dean headed for me, but he dragged Sam along with him, still unwilling to trust that he wouldn't make a break for it. They stopped in front of me, Dean holding Sam's wrist in a white knuckled grip. I didn't think he'd know me, but I wasn't the first person to underestimate a Winchester.

"Hey Michael." Dean's voice was deep with emotion. "I want to thank you, man. Thank you for doing this for us."

"Lot of good people worked hard to get this done." I replied. "I'm just the one who spoke the words."

"I already got the chance to thank most of them in person. They _were_ good people. You all went so damned far beyond what I thought anyone would ever do for us. And you finished it. You gave me the chance to come back for Sam. So I'm thanking you. "

"Hey," I replied, "you helped me help my little brother, how could I not help you help yours?"

"Asher's a lucky guy."

My gut twisted as it always did when I thought of my brother. "Asher's been gone a long time Dean. "

The storm was right overhead now, thunder rumbling as the wind whipped the trees and the rain started to fall, but Dean's smile was like the sun coming out.

"Not gone, Michael. Never gone." He wrapped his arm around Sam's neck and pulled him close. "He's waiting to see you again. Just like I've been waiting for Sammy here. He says take your time, he'll see you when he sees you." Dean turned from me to look at Sam. "We've got to go Sammy. You ready?"

Sam nodded and smiled at me. I'd seen him dozens of times over the last sixty years and seeing him relaxed and happy and with Dean made all the hard work and sacrifice worthwhile. I'd repaid my own personal debt and made a dent in the debt the world owed them.

The light still surrounded them and it was extending like a tunnel. Dean turned, taking Sam with him but he stopped short when Sam balked and turned back to me.

"Thank you, Michael. I've seen you over the years. I saw you all. You were all trying to help, but I couldn't think of anything but what had happened and finding Dean. A lot of people would have given up. Not seen it through. You kept going and I can't tell you how grateful I am. Thank you."

With that he turned back to Dean and slung his arm around his brother's shoulder. "Okay, I'm ready now. If you're sure."

"Just come on." Dean pulled Sam forward and they disappeared down the tunnel of light. It blinked out and I was left with my little fire, guttering in the hard driving rain. I quickly collected my supplies and, huddling into my rain slicker, got back to my car as fast as my arthritic legs would carry me. I put the heater in the car on full as I headed back to my motel.

Half an hour later I was quietly entering the room, carefully trying to not wake Seri. I should have known she'd be waiting for me. It had killed her not to be able to come, but her health had been bad lately and there was no way I was letting her go out in that kind of weather. It had been quite an argument, but she eventually agreed that I couldn't be worrying about her and do the spell at the same time. She smiled at me as I came to sit on the bed beside her.

"You're home."

"I'm home."

"And Sam?"

"It worked, Seri. It really worked. Dean came." Seri gripped my hand and I thought of my last glimpse of the Winchesters. "And honey, Sam's home now too."


End file.
